​While John is imprisoned he sent some of his followers to Jesus with one of the most important questions ever asked, “Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?” John had not seen Jesus’ public ministry he only heard about it from prison.
 
Christ responds to the question brought to him by the messengers in an interesting way, basically saying look what is happening. He does not say “yes I am he,” he describes the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, and the dead regaining life.
 
John’s question shows a lack of certainty on the part of John. Perhaps Jesus’s way did not quite fit John’s idea of how the messiah would be. John seems to have been expecting a harsher and more judgmental messiah.
 
Jesus then addressed the crowd of people who have gathered to hear him speak. He asks them did you go out to see a reed swayed by the wind? In the Jordan valley giant reeds grow along the streams and rivers. They are very tall and are sensitive to the slightest breeze. These reeds were used for measuring rods and walking sticks. He seems to be contrasting the unbending convictions of John with the strong but flexible reeds. He then compares the clothing of prophets and the clothing of kings. He ask them if they went to see a prophet, the last of the prophets had lived about 450 years before. The theme seems to be what kind of messiah they are looking for and how does he measure up.
 
What signs of the coming of the Lord do you see in your own life?

Matthew finds new meaning in the seven hundred and fifty year old text from the Prophet Isaiah and suggests that John is the forerunner to the coming of the messianic Lord at the end of the age. Matthew places John as the voice of a prophet crying out to his people from the wilderness. His image is intending to be both startling and unsettling. He is man who lives in way totally contrary to the way most people live their ordinary life.

John the Baptist criticizes the religious leaders of his day. He calls them a brood of vipers. He suggest that their interest in his religious movement is simply to avoid undesirable consequences for themselves. He emphasizes that fruits and a change of heart is necessary, not just participation in his rites. They seem to suggest that they have inherited the right tradition and the correct understanding of it. John on the other hand teaches that it is not enough just to have the right pedigree. By using the pun of children and stones (ben and ‘eben) he points out that in the future age the importance will be on righteousness and lives of integrity rather than lineage. He saw that the ax was at that very time being set to the root of the tree.

John was a voice announcing the arrival of another. He points out that the one who is coming will gather what is good and useful and sweep the waste away. While the baptism of John is of water, the baptism of the coming Lord’s will be with fire. The winnowing which he invokes will separate those who respond to the call to repentance and those who do not. John recognizes that he is not the one who will judge these things. John sees that the time of the one who is coming will be a time of redemptive and destructive judgement.
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What do the words “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” mean to you in this light?